Friday, July 21, 2017

Maintain and Enhance Your Reputation - Opening Keynote

Each time you retain a speaker to address your group, in many respects you're putting your reputation on the line. What if the speaker is ineffective? What if the speaker bombs? Worst of all, what if the speaker offends - or grossly offends - members of your audience?

You don't want to take a chance, and no one can blame you. You want to select the best possible expert for the program in mind whether it's a conference, convention, annual meeting, quarterly meeting, executive retreat, roundtable session, or any other arrangement. You want to be able to know, with confidence, that your staff or members, executive team, top management, owners, shareholders, or other constituents will be not simply satisfied with your selection, but pleased.

Now envision this. The evening before your special event, the expert presenter you have retained calls to say, "Hi. I arrived a few minutes ago and went immediately to the meeting room. I checked out the facilities, and everything seems fine. I'll be back at the room well in advance of my presentation tomorrow, rested and ready to go."

You put down the phone and think to yourself, "Thank you, thank you, thank you. Here is a speaker who takes care of the little things. Here is a meeting pro."

Next, imagine arriving at the meeting room, seeing that your presenter is already set up and is graciously greeting any early arrivals. Now you're thinking, "Here's somebody who goes the extra mile."